Week 5 Reading Diary A: Arabian Nights

This week I chose to read the Arabian Nights reading unit . I really enjoyed it and chose to comment extensively on my favorite stories from each section of the unit. This week's stories include:

1. Scheherazade
2. The Story of the Parrot; The Story of the Ogress
3. The Story of the Physician's Revenge 

Scheherazade

• Sheherazade is a storyteller who is telling these stories to her husband, the sultan Schahriar, and her sister, Dinarzade.
• The Sultan once had a wife who cheated on him and betrayed him and his faith so she was put to death. He was so shaken that he began to believe that women were evil at their core, all of them. So, he decided there should be less women on the Earth and began a cycle of marrying a new wife each night and having her strangled in front of the Grand-Vizir (who was tasked with finding the new wives), and chaos ensuing among the Sultan's people as his horrific obsession began leaving families without their daughters.
• the Grand-Vizir has 2 daughters: Scheherazade (the most gifted and beautiful) and Dinarzade (the plain one)
• Scheherazade comes to her father and says she wants to stop the Sultan's evil behavior. She suggests he give her to the Sultan as his next bride (to which he flips out, obviously), but refusing to explain her reasoning*. After much emotional toil for the father, he finally consents and tells the Sultan.

*Blogger feels it necessary that this was a little bit... trifling of Sheherazade to do (not tell her father her plan, poor guy was grief-stricken and fearful)

• The Sultan is shocked and asks how he is able to sacrifice his own daughter. The Grand-Vizir tells him that it is her wish and even though they all know he fate that awaits her, she insists. The Sultan reminds the man that he will still have to carry out her death sentence himself or face the punishment. The Grand-Vizir pledges his allegiance to the Sultan and the two part ways. 
• Scheherazade thanks her father before leaving to go get ready for the marriage. She sends for her sister and tells her of her plan: that night she would ask, as her last wish, that the Sultan allow her sister to sleep in the room with them, if he allows it she is to wake Scheherazade up before the sun comes up and ask for her to tell her a story, then she would ask the Sultan to allow her to oblige her sister (which he does), and.. That's where the story ends! Cliff-hanger! 

**Over-Arching Story-line: the daughter takes so long to tell the story that she manages to extend her life each day simply by telling such great tales. Each different story is a tale within a tale and is being told by a new storytelling character in that tale. Also, the character in each tale is in a similar situation to that of Scheherazade; for instance, their lives may also depend on the story they tell. If they tell a good-enough story, then maybe the bad guy in the story will spare their life (much like Scheherazade and the Sultan). Complicated, right?!**

The Story of the Parrot; The Story of the Ogress

This story is in two parts: the story of the parrot, told by Scheherazade, and the story of the ogress, told by the Grand-Vizir of the precious story. 

1. The Story of the Parrot

• There is a good man who loves his wife very much. He bought her a parrot because he didn't want her to have to be alone while he went on a business trip. When he got back from his trip he asked the bird what happened while he was gone and the bird told him some salacious stories about his wife that made him angry. He scorned his wife and she angrily goes on the hunt for who told her husband these things. When she finds out it's the parrot, she plots her revenge. 
• The next time the husband had to leave for the night, the wife and her slaves tricked the bird into thinking there were awful storms all night. So, when the man came home and asked the bird how it went, the bird told him that the thunder and rank were so bad during the night that he couldn't even tell of his suffering. 
• The husband, however, knew that it had not rained or thundered the night before and as convinced the bird was lying to him. He took the bird by the neck and threw it angrily onto the ground, killing it. 
• The king later found out that the bird had in fact not lied and was terribly sorry. 

2. The Story of the Ogress

• There's a king and his son who loved to hunt. One day, while the sun is out hunting, he ends up lost from from the Grand-Vizir and his group and stumbles upon a maiden crying on the side of the road. 
• She tells the prince that she's and Indian princess who is lost and without horse. He offers to take her back to her home and she accepts. She leads him to a set of ruins where it is revealed that she's actually an ogress who plans to feed him to her young! 

• The prince said, "nope" and hopped on his horse. When the ogress saw her prey had escaped she knew it was too late for her to catch him so she asked if she could help him. He was surprised when she told him how to get back to the road, but didn't stick around. He rode home and told the king of what happened. The king, in response to the Grand-Vizir's incompetence and the danger it put his son in, ordered him to be strangled. 

The Physician's Revenge

~The Vizir accuses the physician of being an assassin to the king. The king believes him and sends for the physician with the intent to behead him. The physician arrives and is shocked; he pleads for his life in exchange for the king's, but is bound and positioned for the ax. He begs the king to let him get his affairs in order, including ensuring that his books are given to those who deserve them, including the king. 

~In this book, the physician contends, there are instructions for how to force the severed head of the physician to talk and reveal all to the king after he has been executed. Naturally, the king is intrigued and orders that the physician's execution be postponed and that guards escort the physician to tend to his end-of-life plans. 

~The physician returns to the palace with a book. He tells the king to put the book in the basin after he cuts off his head, the blood will then cease flowing and the head will begin to speak. He is solemn as he tells the king these words, and begs the king one last time to spare his life for he is innocent. The king refuses and the physician's head is cut off. 

~The king opens the book and begins flipping through the sticky pages, licking his fingers between pages, before growing confused. The pages were blank. He kept flipping frantically, licking his fingers to switch the pages, until the poison they'd been dipped in took effect. The head came back to life to shove it in the king's face before both of then died.

Image Information:

1. Trifling, image author unknown, found on The Super B-Beat Show's Blog.
2. Female Man-Eater, Bamela Anderson, posted on the Lead Adventure Forums by user LeadAsbestos